Sunday, July 27, 2008

Talk, talk, swimming and quiz

Saturday was a beautiful, hot day here. I went to work, where it was a quiet afternoon, probably because it was such a lovely day. But I was able to be useful to an overseas student. I told him something he could have benefited from a couple of years ago, at the start if his course, but there we go! I was then able to help with a general enquiry about his accommodation and employment plans for the coming year. But mostly I spent my time finishing things off as I start my off-contract weeks as of today. Mind you, as we have something special happening at work at the mo, I am expecting to go in and do a bit of work over August.

I met Dani and the kids over at the grandmothers’ house, where they were having a joint barbecue with the four next door houses. This was a lovely relaxed affair with bubble making for the kids, swingball and a man who did magic tricks with string. We walked home in the warm evening air.

This morning we seemed to cover rather a lot of major topics in general chat – adoption, the nutrition of babies, race, abortion, contraception – and thanks to “Mock the Week”, orgies... Then we went to a home ed swimming session, which Dani had booked at our local pool. This worked out very well – we all swam and then some of us went to the park. The kids played in the sun and adults chatted.

This evening I cooked a veg heavy dinner – steamed broccoli and carrots, peas and green beans, sweetcorn and roast potatoes – and quorn sausages or quiche. Then we did a family quiz. It was Pearlie’s idea to do this as a Sunday evening thing for a while. Today it was my turn to compose the quiz and the other three had to answer. They all did very well. Leo surprised me by knowing this:“If you are anaemic, which mineral are you lacking?”Pearlie knew lots of stuff – the boiling point of water in degrees Celsius, the capital of Belgium, the number of degrees in the largest interior angle of a right-angled triangle, that water conducts electricity... No wonder she likes quizzes! Dani let herself down by forgetting the name of Paddington’s aunt Lucy.